


Love Lives On

by Stonyinspirationwriter



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Acceptance, Adult Peter, Adulthood, Amicable Divorce, Angst, Arguments, Child adjustments, Child of divorce, Childhood, Coming of Age, Dating, Divorce, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Hurt Steve, Irreconcilable Differences, Love, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Marriage, Moving On, POV First Person, POV Peter Parker, Parent-Child Relationship, Personal Growth, Separation, Superfamily (Marvel), Superhusbands (Marvel), True Love, Young Peter, superhero angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:40:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6621886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonyinspirationwriter/pseuds/Stonyinspirationwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter recounts his parent's divorce through the years. He questions why his dads ever present love for each other isn't enough to repair their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Lives On

**Author's Note:**

> Originally a prompt, it was the very first story I had ever written when I joined this fandom. Although I now know that First Person POV is mostly considered ineffective, I feel that in the case of this work it actually enhances the story.

The thing about heroes is that they give so much of themselves in the line of duty that there isn’t much left to give when they go home. They get home, strip off their costumes, and plaster a fake smile on their face. At the time I was too young to understand this and it would take me a couple of years —as well as becoming a hero myself—to understand and experience firsthand how much it takes from you. With every life saved or not saved, you still end up giving a part of yourself up. Being a hero preys on your sanity, your trust, your health, your emotions, and your sense of worth. You willingly sacrifice yourself on a daily basis for unappreciative strangers who slander your name. It’s also as selfish as it is selfless. Those closest to you will always be the ones that suffer the most.

The explanation most of my friends got from their parents for divorcing was: _mommy and daddy will always love you but they just don’t love each other anymore._ That wasn’t the case with my parents. They never stopped loving each other.

It was summer, I was fourteen years old and about to start high school. We were eating dinner at the kitchen table—the first time in a long time the three of us weren’t too busy to eat together. Dad had been retired as Iron Man for a while and Pops was still working for SHIELD as Captain America. And as much as they both tried to protect me from their double lives, things would still reach surface. Sometimes the battlefield came home. And sometimes the battlefield was home.

There were no more heated discussions behind closed doors that ended up with one of them storming out of the house or locking themselves away for hours. There were no more malicious remarks or two-sided conversations. But what I was truly grateful for was the lack of quiet tension; the stony silences, the exchange of words not from lips but from the eyes. It had been a peaceful summer; so naturally, I felt completely blindsided when they broke the news.

“There’s really no easy way to say this”, Dad explained. “So we’re just gonna come out and say it, Pete.”

“And we don’t want you to put yourself, or anyone else at fault”, Pops interjected. “We just want you to try to understand.” The longest moment of  silence followed. My parents turned to each other; their eyes engaged in a silent exchange of words. Then Pops placed his hand on Dad’s and gave him a sad smile. In response, Dad laced is fingers threw his and nodded, slowly running his thumb over the back of Pops hand. Then Dad turned to me and simply said: “We’re separating, Peter.”

My world came crashing down. Once the initial shock left, it was replaced with a sense of denial that made its way to sadness before suddenly plunging into anger. I saw them as quitters, as mere charlatans that had been lying to me for years. I needed to blame someone and that blame shifted daily. Instead of making this easy, I made it extremely difficult for all of us. What raged me further was the fact that they no longer fought. In my eyes it was confirmation that neither of them any longer cared. I wanted name calling, I wanted things broken, I wanted passion; any indication that they were willing to fight for one another—that they hadn’t given up. They did none of those things.

Then I guess after a while I realized I had to grow up. I began to swap blaming for listening, hating to caring, and denial for acceptance. Once I did this, I understood that their love for each other still remained strong; that the fact that they didn’t yell or scream at each other wasn’t because of a lack of passion but a form of respect. They already had enough pain and sadness to deal with and they were smart enough to not throw salt in an already open wound. They weren’t like most of the divorced parents of my friends who had continued to fight long after the divorce and only seemed to grow more and more resentful with each passing year. Choosing not to fight was a stronger decision and it that took much more work and discipline than simply lashing out.

_“I’ll always love your father.” Pops had told me when I had asked him what went wrong. “But there are some things people can’t understand unless they’ve lived it. There are some things you’re still too young to understand and there are things I pray to God you never understand. But when you’ve lived the kind of life we’ve had to, you learn that love can’t make everything better. Sometimes there are just too many scars.”_

When I asked Dad the same question, I had hoped for a simpler, direct answer, but what I was instead given was as equally cryptic and evasive.

_“When you do what we do, you see things you wish you could forget. You do things that you wish you could take back. But then you are forced to finally stop. And once you do… all the things you tried to avoid and block out for so long come at you at full speed.”_

When I became Spider-Man and they found out, they alluded to the damage the heroic life has on your personal relationships. They told me it could take much more than your life. That was one of those things I couldn’t possibly understand until I was forced to experience it. Being Spider-Man helped me understand them a bit better. Now, I had an inkling of what they had tried to tell me. There were things I now understood because I had also lived through them and there were things I had to accept that I would never understand. No experience is alike, it differs from individual. Our experiences can help shape us and even define us but no man handles those experiences the same way as another.

I was in my twenties and starting to build a life of my own when Pops had suffered a fatal injury on a mission. We weren’t sure he would pull through. Dad never left his side. Pops did survive though, and Dad remained through every step of his recovery. There was a childish part of me that hoped this would bring them to together again; that this experience would teach them that they belonged together. But even after everything, they returned to their amicable but separate relationship. I think any hope I still held for them to get back together finally died soon after.

I was a married man expecting the arrival of his first child when I was introduced to Rachel. By then Pops had retired from being Captain America. Rachel and her husband had been his neighbors up until her husband had died of brain cancer. I think their relationship grew out of the fact that they both needed to move on with their lives even though they would never be able to fully let go of their former lovers. They accepted that their relationship would never measure up to what they both had had, but that the love they would share would be enough.

It was impossible to hate Rachel. She was not only kind and considerate, but very real; there were no false pretenses where she was concerned. She saw life for what it was; refusing to sugar coat the truth but also not giving into self pity. Rachel cared for Pops and didn’t pry into his past. She didn’t know much about Captain America and Pops didn’t tell her much about that past part of his life. Their relationship was built on the present. They never married but Rachel remained a big part of his life and therefore had grown to be a part of mine as well.

Dad was happy that Pops had found someone. When I had asked him why he too never found someone else, he said to me:

_“I’ve had two great loves. I married one of them and raised an amazing kid with him. I finally reached a point in my life where I can finally look back at the past without dwelling on what I should have done or what should have been. I can hang onto the good and let go of the bad. I can be grateful for the time we spend together and I can still go on loving him. I’m happy.”_

When Dad was dying, Pops moved in with him so he could remain by his side. Pops was the last thing he saw as he took his final breaths. Pops was inconsolable. His other half was gone. I’m eternally grateful for Rachel for staying at his side and helping him continue on living. Not a day goes by where he doesn’t still miss dad, though.

What my parents had taught me was that true love lives on. It isn’t a miracle cure. It can’t erase the past nor can it mend wounds. It isn’t enough to single-handedly hold up a relationship or salvage one. It’s too complex to be fully understand but simple enough for anyone to possess it. It never fades. My parents may have been unable to continue their marriage but they never stopped loving each other. Their love transcends life and death. It defies time and it goes against the universe. It is infinite.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is extremely personal for me.


End file.
